Korean Rice Cake

Tteok (떡) or Rice cake, is a traditional Korean Dessert, they are made for celebrations, festivities or it's very commonly used to make Tteokboki, there are way too many kinds of Tteok (sorry!, I don't know the exact number), last year when we visited the Tteok Museum I felt like I was in heaven (lol), there you can learn to make your own Tteok but we didn't do it for lack of time, but we made sure to spare some time to go to the Jilsiru café (inside the museum) to try a great variety of Rice Cakes.

My favorite sweet rice cake is the Mujigae-Tteok 무지개떡

Mujigae Tteok or Rainbow Rice cake is a multicolored layered ricecake, it's made with natural food coloring to achieve this effect, if you look at it it looks like a regular cake-bread, when you try it it has a very soft texture and it's chewy at the end.... I love every part of this cake, I tried making it once and Failed miserably. 

Maehwa Tteok is the pink one

Maehwa-Tteok 매화떡

The small white flowers of Maehwa (plum flower) have a sweet fragance, this Rice cake is one of Korea's traditional foods that mirrors the elegant image of the country. Mixed with natural dyes and shaped into a Plum flower it can also have bean paste, pine nuts or dried dates added.

Image: Corbisimages.com

Chapssal-Tteok  찹쌀떡

Chappsal Tteok is a Korean dessert rice cake filled with sweet bean paste, these are very similar to the Japanese Mochi, I've had this in Mexico many times and sometimes they make a green tea rice cake filled with the bean paste, this helps remove the sweetness of the bean paste and is another one of my favorites!



   

Image: wikimedia.com

Last but not least, is the Ingeolmi 인절미

This rice cake is a MUST during festivities, it's sof and people usually eat it as a snack, this rice cake is coated with soybean powder, it can also be coated with other ingredients powder such as sesame seads, dried jujube, etc.



Have you tried other Rice cakes?, I usually buy a small package but since my sister doesn't like'em I always have left overs and without a microwave is hard to re-heat them, do you have any advice for it?

-Gisela V.

P.s. I forgot!! You can also have Tteok with Patbingsu, it's the perfect WIN

Patbingsu we had in Jeonju = WIN